At the Gina Relays at Hillsdale College, Hope College’s Kara VandeGuchte finished third in a field of 14 in the heptathlon, totalling 4,397 points. The conditional qualifying standard for the NCAA Division III national meet is 4,100 points.

Staff reports

At the Gina Relays at Hillsdale College, Hope College’s Kara VandeGuchte finished third in a field of 14 in the heptathlon, totalling 4,397 points. The conditional qualifying standard for the national meet is 4,100 points.

VandeGuchte (Hamilton) finished third in the 200-meter dash, fifth in the 800-meter run, second in the 100-meter hurdles, sixth in the high jump, fourth in the long jump, fifth in the shot put and sixth in the javelin.

Close behind VandeGuchte, representing the University of Michigan, was Zeeland East grad Sara Nitz. She finished fourth in the heptathlon with 4,112 points, highlighted by a tie for second in the high jump and a third in the javelin.

In the men’s meet, senior Jeff Minkus set a Hope record in winning the triple jump at 48-21⁄4 to improve his NCAA conditional qualifying distance. Senior Michael Paas won the javelin at 180-10 and the 3,200-meter relay team of Joel Rietsema, William Hewitt, Andrew Mckeachie and Nathan Love posted a winning time of 7:44.48.

Nicholas Rinck also took fifth in the 400-meter hurdles (54.88) and seventh in the 400-meter dash (49.59).

Men’s golf
Hope sixth at invite: The Flying Dutchmen tied for sixth place at the Wooster, Ohio, invite.
Malone led the field of 14 teams at 590 strokes. Hope ended with 636 to tie Olivet.
Steven Strock led Hope. His 79-76 — 155 was good enough for a tie for 15th place individually.
John Cannon shot 158 for Hope, Andy Thomson carded a 159, Nick Campbell finished with a 167 and Charles Olson shot 168.

Women’s golf
Hope third at NCAA qualifier: The Flying Dutch finished third in the MIAA qualifying tournament for the NCAA Division III championship at Saint Mary’s Blackthorn/Warren Golf Course.
Hope finished with a two-day total of 694 strokes, trailing only host Saint Mary’s (659) and Olivet (672) in the standings.
Megan Scholten led Hope with a 169, good enough for sixth place individually. Lauren Zandstra shot 173, followed by Charlotte Park (175), Andrea McCarty (177) and Cassie Sneller, a Hamilton graduate (179).